Sleep 7 Hours Straight

For the first couple of months, Julia has been feeding around the clock every 2 hours or so. Lately, she's feeding more like 2.5 to 3 hours. I'm guessing her stomach is getting bigger so can hold more milk. This translates to more sleep for me at night... yay!

The past 2 nights have been special though; Julia slept 7 hours straight! Wow, now that is what I call progress. She's 9 weeks old now so it's normal for babies to sleep longer at night. I'm thankful for that. Now if only I can get her to be on some sort of wake/feed schedule during the day. We currently put her to bed anywhere from 8:30-10pm, subject to when she feels like taking that last bottle of milk before bed (alot of times, she plays with the bottle rather than drinking it because she prefers breastfeeding).

Jasmine or Julia

In the following pictures, can you determine whether it is Jasmine or Julia in the photo?

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

Answer key:
1) Julia
2) Jasmine
3) Jasmine
4) Julia
5) Julia
6) Jasmine

2 Month Old - Julia

Julia just turned 2 months and we went for Julia's check up today. Here are her stats:

Weight - 12lb 5oz (80 percentile)
Height - 60cm (90 percentile)
Head - 39.5cm (90 percentile)

Julia is very healthy and growing fast. She actually weighs more than Jasmine when Jasmine was 4 months old!!! Julia is already wearing 6 months clothes.

Julia had 3 shots today, all jabbed into her chubby thighs. She cried for 1 minute and then she was done. I put her clothes back on and slid her into her carseat without another peep. What a good girl. Now, it seems like she is super sleepy and hungry... we'll see how the rest of the night goes. Hopefully no fever.

Is it Reflux?

It's the third night in a row that Julia has thrown up all over me. It always seems to happen in the middle of the night. I just don't get it. The second night, she puked on me twice...the first time I was able to clean up the mess on my own (sort of) but then the second time, I put Julia onto my shoulder to burp and she threw up all over my back, the couch and the cushions. Hard to believe that she can make such a mess in less than a second. I had to call Richard who was sleeping upstairs at 1:15am in the morning to come and help. It was just all over the place and I needed to shower.

I've always suspected a reflux issue with Julia since she was born. She had heavy breathing when she slept, always making a gurgling sound in her throat. But the doc doesn't think so, even with all these throwing up incidents. I was told to keep her upright for 20 minutes after she feeds, but that doesn't seem to help. Julia sleeps on a wedge in her crib, which keeps her body in a slight incline. Other than that, I'm not sure what else I can do.

If this keeps up, I'll be changing shirts every other hour and doing loads of laundry all the time (Julia's clothes too). Let's hope she grows out of it.

Grandpa Leung - Visit in Vancouver

Grandpa Leung came over to Vancouver for a quick visit on Sunday. He didn't stay overnight so the visit was short. Grangpa Leung doesn't get to see Jasmine and Julia very often so there were lots of hugs and kisses. Look at the happy faces:

Vaisakhi Parade

On short notice, we went to see the Vaisakhi parade in Vancouver, near Main and 49th Avenue. It's a huge celebration for East Indians (sort of like Chinese New Year); they closed streets and had police to direct traffic. Richard really wanted to go check it out and eat all the yummy food. Unfortunately, it was so packed with people that we could hardly walk through. We couldn't even see the stands with food so we left early, to buy lunch elsewhere. Jasmine had lots of fun though, getting candy, balloons and running all over the place. We had to watch her closely and held her hand every step of the way...because if we lost her, we would have a terrible time finding her in the crowd. Here are a couple of pics during the day:

Diaper Rash - Finally Gone

After 4 weeks of battling the diaper rash, it's finally gone. (knock on wood, hoping it does not come back...) Sigh, what a relief. It was a long process.

First, just watching the rash get bigger, then redder, then sores, then bloody (look at photo). Can you imagine having all these sores on your bum and someone cleaning and wiping it every couple of hours? OUCH. Julia screamed in pain at every diaper change. Just lying down on the change pad, she already knew the pain coming (I can see it in her eyes).

We found out it was a bacterial rash and was prescribed a topical cream to put onto the rash 3 times a day, for 7 days. After 7 days, it looked like it was clearing up and then BAM... the rash came back full force on the last day. So we went back to the docs office and was then prescribed oral antibiotics for 10 days, 4 times a day. I had to make sure Julia got her dose of medicine every 6 hours, even in the middle of the night (it didn't matter since I had to feed and change her diaper at 3am anyways).

Meanwhile, I tried several types of diaper creams to act as a barrier between Julia's skin and the diaper. The creams I tried include:

Penaten
Desitin
Boudreaux's Butt Paste
Weleda Calendula Diaper Cream
Live Clean Baby Diaper Ointment
Live Clean Baby Non-petroleum jelly
Vaseline
Maalox
Vinegar diluted with water

Out of all the creams, I prefer the Live Clean Baby brand because they are made from all natural plant based ingredients and no chemicals. I don't have to worry about Julia absorbing any bad things into her tiny body. Also, I found that most of the creams seemed to melt into Julia's skin, no matter how thick I try to goop it on. This is what finally worked for me:

1) use a paper towel with diluted vinegar to blot off pee/poo (wiping the skin would tear off the new skin growing back)
2) then use blowdryer on low setting and warm heat to dry off bum
3) put Live Clean Baby diaper ointment on the red areas
4) put Live Clean Baby non-petroleum jelly on the rest of the diaper area

Hopefully this is the end of all diaper rashes for her.